Re: /proc/loadavg disagrees with top and ps

[Reid Priedhorsky <reid@reidster.net>]

On Tue, 03 Aug 2004 23:10:08 +0200, Paul Gear wrote:
>
> Reid Priedhorsky wrote:
>> Hello everyone,
>> 
>> /proc/loadavg currently reports the following:
>> 
>>   0.96 0.98 0.78 1/116 23994
>> 
>> xload also reports roughly the same.
>> 
>> But top and ps both report a nearly idle system (98% idle). What is going
>> on? How can I find out what is causing my system to be so busy?
> 
> I've seen load averages of 14 and 16 when the CPU usage was on 10%.  The
> two are usually, but not necessarily, related.  There are certain types
> of work where this behaviour will be seen.  Even low amounts of I/O to a
> slow device, if done by enough processes could cause this.

Hmm. So, the general consensus is that it's not a problem; and it
certainly doesn't seem to affect interactivity or performance at all. It's
my home box, not a server or anything, and it normally has very low loads,
10-15% maybe when I'm using it and essentially zero when I'm not. There
shouldn't be lots of processes doing I/O.

The high load dropped back to normal shortly after I posted.

I'm still interested in tools that would tell me what processes are doing
I/O, or whatever. It's unnerving for things to being going on with my box
that I don't understand.

Thanks, everyone.

Reid